ROK Peacekeeping DA Michigan Institutes ‘10
1/277 Week Juniors
ROK Peacekeeping DA - 7 Week Juniors
ROK Peacekeeping DA – 1nc
***UNIQUENESS
Peacekeeping Now
Peacekeeping/Modernization Now
Piracy Decreasing
***LINKS
2nc Link Block
U.S. Key to ROK Piracy Solutions
***IMPACTS
African War Impact – 2nc
Global Economy Impact – 2nc
Middle East Stability Impact – 2nc
ROK Forces Solve Piracy
Piracy Hurts Trade
ROK Soft Power Impact
***Aff ANS
Piracy Economy Impact Ans
Piracy Terrorism Impact Ans
Piracy Somalia Impact Ans
Piracy Increasing Now
ROK Peacekeeping is Small
Uniqueness Outweighs the Link
Dependence on U.S. Hurts ROK Diplomacy
ROK Peacekeeping DA – 1nc
U.S. presence is giving South Korea the security and cover to boost its role in world security – especially peacekeeping operations
Axe, 10 – independent military correspondent based in South Carolina. He has reported from Iraq, Afghanistan, East Timor, Lebanon, Somalia, Chad and other conflict zones (4/27/10, David, The Diplomat“South Korea’s Secret War,” JMP)
More than half a century since the end of the Korean War and the beginning of a long period of relative military isolation, South Korea is gradually, and quietly, playing a larger role in world security.
Despite strong US support, South Korea’s rise as a military power is complicated by domestic politics, and by a belligerent North Korea. To avoid provoking foreign and domestic opposition, Seoul has cleverly disguised its newest overseas military operation as a strictly peaceful affair.
Despite a technologically advanced military and a gross domestic product just shy of $1 trillion, making it the world’s 15th wealthiest country, the Republic of Korea has rarely deployed troops outside its borders. Granted, more than 300,000 South Koreans fought in the Vietnam War, and about 5,000 died. But it wasn’t until 1999, when Seoul sent 400 soldiers to boost a UN force trying to stabilize East Timor, that the country of 49 million participated in an overseas military campaign.
South Korean medics and engineers joined the US-led coalitions in Afghanistan in 2001 and in Iraq in 2003. The Afghan mission was curtailed after the Taliban kidnapped a South Korean church group in Afghanistan and murdered 2 of its 23 members. The extremists released the surviving captives when Seoul promised to stick to a planned withdrawal by the end of 2007; the departing South Koreans left behind only a small civilian-run hospital at Bagram Air Field, outside Kabul. The Iraqi mission ended peacefully in 2008. That year, Seoul also sent a warship to patrol Somali waters for pirates.
But it was a second deployment to Afghanistan in 2010 that marked South Korea’s true debut as a military power. In response to US President Barak Obama’s call for a bigger international coalition in Afghanistan, Seoul last year pledged aProvincial Reconstruction Team and a powerful infantry force to accompany the team—a total of around 500 troops.
South Korea also plans to send helicopters to support these ground troops. The aircraft, scheduled to arrive this year, will integrate into the US Army’s 3rd Combat Aviation Brigade based at Bagram, according to brigade commander Colonel Don Galli.
Engineering and reconstruction are core strengths of the Korean military. But the planned Afghan PRT represents a ‘face-saving vehicle’ for Seoul, providing political cover for the combat force, according to Scott Snyder, an analyst with the San Francisco-based Asia Foundation. While South Korea is committed to making a meaningful contribution to the Afghan war, sending fighting troops ‘is somewhat sensitive in the South Korea political context,’ Snyder told The Diplomat magazine. Hence the ‘reconstruction’ rubric.
All the same, Snyder said there’s been less domestic discomfort with the Afghan deployment than many observers expected. An alliance of small opposition parties promised to fight the deployment, but is unlikely to reverse Seoul’s decision. ‘The South Korean public is getting more comfortable’ with sending troops abroad, Snyder said. Just not so comfortable that they don’t demand a soft sell.
A ‘Global Korea’
That shift has its roots in the US-led international coalition that defended South Korea five decades ago and helped rebuild the country after the war. ‘The new administration [in Seoul] is emphasizing this theme of a “global Korea,” which increasingly hits on the idea that South Korea had been a recipient of international contributions and now it’s time for South Korea to pay that back,’ Snyder said.
But Seoul’s appetite for a broader security role is complicated by ongoing tensions with North Korea. In May last year, Pyongyang officially withdrew from the truce that ended the Korean War, amid the North’s escalating efforts to develop nuclear weapons. North and South Korea have sparred over their disputed sea border. In November, North and South Korean naval vessels opened fire on each other. A North Korean sailor died in that exchange.
On March 26, a South Korean patrol boat, the Cheonan, exploded and sank in the Yellow Sea. Forty-six sailors died. Officials have blamed the sinking on an ‘external’ explosion—perhaps from a mine or a torpedo—rather than some internal malfunction. That means Cheonan might have been attacked. Seoul has been careful not to directly accuse Pyongyang of orchestrating an attack, but Foreign Minister Yu Myung-Hwan did say the UN Security Council might become involved if emerging evidence implicates North Korea.
Seoul’s guarded response to the Cheonan sinking underscores President Lee Myung-Bak’s intention to avoid direct confrontation with Pyongyang. South Korea seeks to expand outward as a military power, rather than continuing to focus its security apparatuses solely on its neighbour. After all, overseas military operations can be cloaked in peaceful rhetoric, while confrontations with North Korea frequently and obviously result in bloodshed.
The South Korean contingent in Afghanistan illustrates Seoul’s veiled approach to a wider security role. The Korean troops, with their helicopters and armoured vehicles, form a ‘heavy’ reconstruction team that is, in fact, virtually indistinguishable from a US Army combat task force. And in fact, both the Korean PRT and a typical US task force conduct many of the same kinds of operations. After all, the Afghanistan war is a counter-insurgency campaign, where efforts to win Afghans’ allegiance drive military planning. In Afghanistan, the only important distinction between the South Koreans and the Americans is rhetorical.
Seoul is not the first government to attempt this sleight of hand in the interest of deploying forces to Afghanistan. The Dutch government deployed a similar heavy PRT to the southern part of the country soon after the US-led invasion in 2001. The Hague sold the deployment as a strictly peaceful, reconstruction exercise—never mind the jet fighters, artillery and helicopter gunships that accompanied the engineers. The rhetoric of peace was the only way to avoid a popular backlash against the operation.
The Taliban poked holes in The Hague’s cover story when hundreds of armed extremists attacked Dutch positions in Uruzgan Province in June 2007. It was one of the largest pitched battles of the year for NATO forces. Several Dutch soldiers died, while more than a hundred Afghan civilians were killed when the Dutch fired artillery and dropped bombs on heavily populated areas. In the aftermath of the fighting, elements in the Dutch government advocated cancelling the Afghanistan deployment; it took more than two years of political manoeuvring, but in February The Hague announced it would evacuate its troops this year.
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ROK Peacekeeping DA – 1nc
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As long as Seoul pursues a similar strategy to disguise its growing war role, it runs the risk of a political conflagration similar to The Hague’s, if and when South Korean forces come under attack in Afghanistan.
US Cover
South Korea is hardly striking out on its own as a burgeoning power. At every step, Seoul’s closest ally is providing cover. TheUnited States has offered support at every level—even at Bagram, where US Air Force security personnel protect the South Korean hospital. ‘They do a good job for us,’ says nurse Chon Jung Ae, referring to the US guards.
Seoul’s military expansion has a strong foundation in the continued presence of US forces in the South. The strong US military contingent in South Korea ensures the country can direct resources towards other conflicts, without jeopardizing its security vis-a-vis the North.
More than 25,000 US troops are permanently based in the Republic of Korea to help defend against any North Korean attack. Washington considers the defence of South Korea so important that the Pentagon has barred US troops in the country from ever deploying to Iraq or Afghanistan. ‘Our number-one priority in Korea is to be prepared to deter and defend,’ US Army Gen. Skip Sharp, Commander of U.S. Forces Korea, told The Diplomat.
Still, Sharp said the US-South Korean alliance is ‘definitely blossoming into something larger’ than mere territorial defence. ‘I really do think we are looking at what kind of training capability we need on the [Republic of Korea] side, not only against the North Korean threat, but future threats as well.’
This year’s Afghanistan deployment is a big step towards a South Korean military that routinely participates in a wider range of missions abroad. Major weapons purchases are consistent with this trend, and might point to an even greater world security role for Seoul in coming years. In 2007, South Korea commissioned the first of three small aircraft carriers. If and when Seoul buys naval fighters to fly from them, the 14,000-ton vessels will be among the most powerful in Asia—and capable of projecting South Korea’s influence all over the world.
By then, no doubt, the rhetorical veil in place in Afghanistan will be both unnecessary, and impossible to maintain.
South Korean peacekeeping forces are key to global peace and successful war on terror
Colonel Groves, 07 – currently assigned as the UCJ39, UN Command, Combined Forces Command and U.S. Forces Korea (September 2007, Col. Bryan Groves, Army, “Republic of Korea Peacekeeping Operations—Ensuring Peace and Stability Around the World,” JMP)
Playing a larger role on the world stage is not without its costs. Paying his respects to Sgt. Yoon Jang-ho, who was killed in a suicide bombing in Afghanistan, President Roh Moo-hyun expressed the agony he went through before deciding to send ROK soldiers to Iraq and Afghanistan: “It is sometimes unavoidable to ask the nation’s soldiers to shoulder the burden of maintaining world peace. Knowing every life is precious, it is not easy to send soldiers abroad to assume such a role.”
Still, the ROK government is convinced that supporting international efforts to fight terrorism is not only reasonable but also in the nation’s best interests. ROK leaders know that by actively participating in international peacekeeping operations, supporting efforts to prevent weapons of mass destruction proliferation and by helping sustain the global war on terrorism, they are contributing to a better future for their own citizens.
Korea currently has more than 2,200 troops serving as peacekeepers and observers in 12 countries. In every instance, they have successfully accomplished their mission and have been welcomed by the local people. The Iraqi minister of domestic affairs told Korean assemblymen visiting Iraq in September 2006 that the Iraqi people consider the Korean soldiers in the Zaytun Division as their brothers and kindly asked for their continued presence in Iraq.
The ROK understands that global peace and security are essential to a growing world economy and the prosperity of its citizens. The ROK has repeatedly demonstrated that it is willing to use its military towards that end, and the men and women of the armed forces of the Republic of Korea have answered the call repeatedly and in outstanding fashion.
Extinction
Sid-Ahmed, 04–political analyst(Mohamed, Managing Editor for Al-Ahali, “Extinction!” August 26-September 1, Issue no. 705,
What would be the consequences of a nuclear attack by terrorists? Even if it fails, it would further exacerbate the negative features of the new and frightening world in which we are now living. Societies would close in on themselves, police measures would be stepped up at the expense of human rights, tensions between civilisations and religions would rise and ethnic conflicts would proliferate. It would also speed up the arms race and develop the awareness that a different type of world order is imperative if humankind is to survive. But the still more critical scenario is if the attack succeeds. This could lead to a third world war, from which no one will emerge victorious. Unlike a conventional war which ends when one side triumphs over another, this war will be without winners and losers. When nuclear pollution infects the whole planet, we will all be losers.
ROK Peacekeeping DA – 1nc
ROK peacekeepers are key to anti-piracy forums
Twining, 10 – Senior Fellow for Asia at the German Marshall Fund of the United States (4/1/10, Daniel, “Strengthening the U.S.-Korea Alliance for the 21st Century,”
Another new multilateral mechanism could be functional groupings of principal Indian and Pacific Ocean powers, including the five above plus India, Australia, and Indonesia, (1) to develop a joint anti-piracy and disaster relief naval force, and (2) to build regional peacekeeping capacity for joint peacekeeping operations under UN-mandated operations in Africa and the Middle East. South Korea, with its capable armed forces, could play an important role in both the peacekeeping and the anti-piracy forums, inculcating habits of cooperation among Indo-Pacific powers that could spill over into other functional realms.
Piracy causes oil spikes
Yusef, 09 -- Foreign Policy In Focus contributor and a program officer at the Engaging Governments on Genocide Prevention Program (EGGP) at George Mason University (Hussein, Foreign Policy in Focus, “What's Next for Somalia.” ed. John Feffer,
This neglect resulted in the presence of pirates in Somalia, who have the finances, the physical access to one of Africa's largest coastlines, and the technology to capture a range of merchant ships. Spoils have included a huge Saudi oil supertanker carrying $100 million of oil. In 2008 alone, pirates attacked more than 100 ships.
In response to the threat of the Somali pirates, warships from several countries, including Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Denmark, and the United States, are now operating in the Gulf of Aden off of Somalia to protect shipping lanes. If the United States doesn't fully engage with Somalia, piracy will grow. Oil prices will rise due to security demands, higher insurance rates, ransoms, and longer shipping routes.
Oil price spike collapses the global economy
Kenneth M. Pollack (Director of Research at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the
Brookings Institution. From 1995 to 1996 and 1999 to 2001, he served as Director for Persian Gulf
Affairs on the staff of the National Security Council) 2003 “ Securing the Gulf “
America's primary interest in the Persian Gulf lies in ensuring the free and stable flow of oil from the region to the world at large. This fact has nothing to do with the conspiracy theories leveled against the Bush administration during the run-up to the recent war. U.S. interests do not center on whether gas is $2 or $3 at the pump, or whether Exxon gets contracts instead of Lukoil or Total. Nor do they depend on the amount of oil that the United States itself imports from the Persian Gulf or anywhere else. The reason the United States has a legitimate and critical interest in seeing that Persian Gulf oil continues to flow copiously and relatively cheaply is simply that the global economy built over the last 50 years rests on a foundation of inexpensive, plentiful oil, and if that foundation were removed, the global economy would collapse. Today, roughly 25 percent of the world's oil production comes from the Persian Gulf, with Saudi Arabia alone responsible for roughly 15 percent -- a figure expected to increase rather than decrease in the future. The Persian Gulf region has as much as two-thirds of the world's proven oil reserves, and its oil is absurdly economical to produce, with a barrel from Saudi Arabia costing anywhere from a fifth to a tenth of the price of a barrel from Russia. Saudi Arabia is not only the world's largest oil producer and the holder of the world's largest oil reserves, but it also has a majority of the world's excess production capacity, which the Saudis use to stabilize and control the price of oil by increasing or decreasing production as needed. Because of the importance of both Saudi production and Saudi slack capacity, the sudden loss of the Saudi oil network would plyze the global economy, probably causing a global downturn at least as devastating as the Great Depression of the 1930s, if not worse. So the fact that the United States does not import most of its oil from the Persian Gulf is irrelevant: if Saudi oil production were to vanish, the price of oil in general would shoot through the ceiling, destroying the American economy along with everybody else's.